How to spot a scam seller

Here are some tips how to avoid getting scammed. Most of the scam sellers can be identified by having thousands of products in stock, offer hard-to-believe low prices, do not offer Prime shipping, and have no seller feedback.

If the price looks to be good to be true, it probably is

Scam sellers often list thousands of products with hard-to-believe low prices. If a seller has no feedback and is able to offer low pricing it's a likely indication that they are not trustworthy. Just Launched sellers should be avoided.
Retailers spend months trying to source great deals from manufacturers, it's very unlikely a brand new retailer is able to do this.

Sellers not offering Prime shipping

Sellers offering Prime shipping are using Fulfillment by Amazon (known as FBA), where products are physically stored and handled by Amazon, or Amazon has verified their shipping capabilities. Even though many trusted sellers do their own shipping and don't offer Prime shipping, if a new seller has great pricing and does their own shipping - be careful. By doing their own shipping they have a lot of flexibility to cheat the system.

Many of these scam sellers indicate shipping times as long as a 2-4 weeks, thus by the time customers realize products are not coming sellers have already received the payment and have disappeared.

If a seller's name looks like its out the phone-book, it is almost always a scammer

Many trusted sellers use representative business names, and often have their own websites. If the name looks like someones actual first and last name, or if it is unreadable, then be cautious.

Seller sets shipping from US state like Texas, but clicking on profile shows they're based outside the US

Always check where the product is shipping from, and how many days it will take to get there. If the item is needed before a specific date, like Christmas, don't wait until the last minute - reorder from a different seller if it's been weeks and the product is still not there. Are Chinese and other international sellers trustworthy?

Thousands of products listed as in stock

If a seller has thousands, or even tens of thousands of products in stock, that's usually a good indicator. Similar to too-good-to-be-true pricing, offering so many products as a new seller is rare occurrence for legitimate retailers. Often scam sellers do this to increase the number of customers to see their pricing.

Check on Marketplace Pulse to see how many products they have in stock, average product price and if they use FBA for fulfillment. Marketplace Pulse has all sellers across all Amazon marketplaces.

Seller is asking to be contacted before placing an order

Is it safe to contact a seller outside of Amazon? No. Scam sellers are trying to get customers to call or email them outside of Amazon to avoid Amazon being able to do anything about it. Never place any orders, or try to pay for an order, anywhere but on Amazon website.

Check on Scam Sellers before buying from a new seller

Before buying from a suspicious looking seller, check on our site if we have already detected them as a fraudulent seller. The updates list is always showing latest additions. If a seller you are looking for is missing or you are unsure if they are trustworthy report a fraudulent seller and we will check.